Claude Denson PEPPER

(1900-1989)

Senate Years of Service:

1936-1951

Party:

Democrat

PEPPER, Claude Denson, a
Senator and a Representative from Florida; born on a farm near
Dudleyville, Chambers County, Ala., September 8, 1900; attended the
public schools of Camp Hill, Ala.; taught school in Dothan, Ala.,
and worked in a steel mill in Ensley, Ala., before attending
college; served in Students Army Training Corps, University of
Alabama, in 1918; graduated from the University of Alabama at
Tuscaloosa in 1921 and from the law department of Harvard
University in 1924; taught law in the University of Arkansas in
1924 and 1925; admitted to the bar in 1925 and commenced practice
in Perry, Fla.; member of the State house of representatives in
1929 and 1930; moved to Tallahassee, Fla., in 1930 and continued
the practice of law; served on the State board of public welfare in
1931 and 1932; member of the State board of law examiners in 1933;
elected on November 3, 1936, as a Democrat to the United States
Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Duncan U.
Fletcher; reelected in 1938 and 1944 and served from November 4,
1936, to January 3, 1951; chairman, Committee on Patents
(Seventy-eighth and Seventy-ninth Congresses); unsuccessful
candidate for renomination in 1950 and for nomination in 1958;
engaged in the practice of law at Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and
Tallahassee, Fla., and in Washington, D.C.; elected as a Democrat
to the Eighty-eighth and to the thirteen succeeding Congresses, and
served from January 3, 1963, until his death; chairman, Select
Committee on Crime (Ninety-first through Ninety-sixth Congresses),
Select Committee on Aging (Ninety-fifth through Ninety-seventh
Congress), Committee on Rules (Ninety-eighth through One Hundred
First Congresses); awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on May
26, 1989; died in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 1989; lay in state
in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, June 1-2, 1989; interment in
Oakland Cemetery, Tallahasse, Fla.